Scarecrow Nixon

By Angus Krieg

Having met the girl of his dreams, Alan Grendigh a soldier in the British Army is thrown into a very real nightmare of deception, betrayal, violence and ultimately killing. He moves from being a man on the mend after being wounded on deployment to being sort after when he goes on the run to find Susie. But he is only the bait in a game of high stakes played by the British Establishment and the British Underworld. They think that with only one man to pursue it should be easy But Alan Grendigh isnt an easy bloke and doesnt give in without a fight, and the street war that they have brought to people in the suburbs of the country is suddenly turned on themselves!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Jul 26, 2010
• ISBN: 9781453502389

Angus Krieg

Angus Krieg has worked in some of the Worlds Wildest Hot Spots, having been a serviceman in the British Army for more than 20 years. From the Streets of Northern Ireland during The Troubles to the Deserts of Iraq and Afghanistan, he has seen real drama and now adapts this into fiction. Scarecrow Nixon is his first novel.

Book preview

Copyright © 2010 by Angus Krieg.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2010908149

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4535-1418-4

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4535-1417-7

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4535-0238-9

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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300268

To Sarah

Contents

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 1

Part 1

When it all happened, when I saw Susie, I knew I wanted her! She was the girl for me.

I wanted her!

It happened on a cold, frosty day in mid December 2007, at Peterborough railway station. It was a Sunday, and if nothing else I clearly remember that now, though much, if not nearly all of what happened afterwards, is now a not too distant blur.

It should be clearer than it actually is for me when I think about what became of that fateful meeting, but so much did, and it happened so fast—and as usual I lost track and therefore a lot of the detail!

There was a shiny yellowy blue sky above the town. I saw the stock yards and the familiar outline of the low roofed ware houses rolling into my vision and began to recognise some of the outlines that I’d first seen when I had just turned 20. The vast rail yard loomed before the window of my east facing seat of the train. It was about 3:30 p.m. as the 12.55 Newcastle crawled into sight of the land mark Cathedral.

I’d taken the train from my adopted home town of Doncaster that Sunday afternoon and was expecting to travel to Colchester that night, via London as my ticket was made out to and for which I’d paid.

But because of engineering works that day, the train I was on was going no further than the station it was pulling into now, which of cause was Peterborough. I was on my way back to my base to cover duties for my mob which I was due to undertake on Christmas Day of all things. But I had decided to come back a couple of days early.

I checked the timings for the long route to Colchester and saw that the next one wasn’t until 4:25 p.m. So I thought about going to the shopping centre across the road, to get something to eat. And I don’t know why, because it wasn’t raining or snowing or even windy, but as I walked out of the main entrance to the station, I stopped.

Having walked out into the gloom, I found myself wanting a fag. There were a few smokers outside huddled along the wall, and as I walked along to find a space to do the same, I saw her.

About 5 ft 7, dyed blonde hair down to her shoulders, light blue ski jacket, faded dark blue drainpipe jeans and white high heeled platform sandals. She had a smart rucksack on her back and she looked like the sort of girl who knew how to use it. The straps were folded in and tied back and the shoulder pads fitted her snugly.

She was having a cigarette and when she finished it, I noticed that she appeared to be on her own. She walked back into the station booking office and I was sold.

Stop! I thought, Don’t go charging back in, I had to tell myself, It’ll look like you are stalking her!

So I waited, and then walked back in. To my horror, there was a train on the southward bound track on the near side of the station.

I rushed out onto the platform to see if she had got on it. She was no where to be found. I went the full course of the train, starting where I was, almost at its centre and then went to the back.

Looking all the time to find her, and unable to see her or any sign of her, like her rucksack on a table or chair. But to no avail. The guard on the platform raised his hand and blew his whistle and the train doors closed automatically.

Not for the last time that day my heart fell to the floor. The train pulled out and the light above the station seemed to become dimmer.

I thought Wow, what a girl, I wonder who she was!

Well I knew I’d have to get the slow train to Colchester, so I walked down to the stairs which lead to the bridge which climbs over the tracks of the main east coast line.

The windows of the tunnel which runs across this proclaimed the fall of dusk, at 4:00 p.m., as I made my way to the west stair well, which take you to the fen line siding.

It was very cold by now, the mist blowing thick and heavy from my breath. I was walking through clouds of my own steam, but didn’t care. I decided to get myself a coffee from the Spar shop next to the siding.

I walked in. There were a few customers sitting round the stools of the tables facing out of both side windows at the tracks. I walked to the counter and stood in the queue.

Two girl students were in front of me and whilst waiting one of them looking at the crisps she’d bought told her friend that she didn’t want them. Her friend suggested something else and as they turned to go back to the stall I suddenly saw Susie behind her.

I nearly jumped my self, never mind my own heart.

She was stood at the counter, buying a coffee. She paid for the drink and on taking her change, said thank you in the cool un-mistakable Geordie accent that I’d not heard in more than 20 years.

She turned and at that moment, our eyes made contact for the first time. I smiled and she smiled back.

The train was pulling in outside and I took my coffee and followed her out. She seemed to wait for me and held the door for me so that I could follow her out.

This is just too good to be true I thought, "But I’m still going to give it a try—what have I got to loose!" She might be married, but I’d seen no rings on her hands. And if she was travelling back down with her fella, them surely she’d be with him, or more likely in his car with him.

The train doors opened and we got on, me immediately behind her. She walked down towards the back of the compartment and then slung her rucksack in a double seat and sat down. I saw that the seats immediately opposite were empty and sat down in them.

I sat there and out of the corner of my eye, looked at her. She was ultra sexy, every bit of her looked good. No rings on her fingers, no necklace round her neck. Just a smart practical watch on her left wrist.

She was reading a paperback, occasionally sipping mineral water from a plastic bottle. And then she put her head back and went to sleep. I watched her, and the more I watched her the more I wanted her.

But who was she? Was she in the army as I suspected, or was she a soldier’s wife? I thought not, as I couldn’t see anything to suggest she was married.

Eventually she woke and on doing so, saw me looking at her. But far from frowning at me, she gave me the most broad, generous smile I’d ever been given by anyone.

The train trundled along the old slow route through the Fen Lands and began to pick up speed. Then just before one stop short of Ipswich, she suddenly put her jacket on. She was standing by now and my heart sank as she was obviously going to get off at the next stop.

I looked away. The train was beginning to pull into the dark cold old badly lit station. Here she would get off and meet someone who she loved and cared for. Damn!!

But then she sat down and waited in her seat. The train stopped and the doors opened but she stayed seated and waited. The doors closed and just as the train began to pull out of the station; she looked over at me and said, Is Ipswich the next stop?

Yes! I said returning her smile, "Yes it’s the last one for this train—are you going to Colchester?"

Yeah, that’s right! she said in that fresh, cool Geordie accent again—wowww! It just filled my head low and long.

So we stayed on the train and it travelled quickly down the tracks to Ipswich. As we got there she got up and I did at the same time.

I made sure no one could come between us. She was in front and I immediately behind.

She stood by the door and as the train pulled into the station at Ipswich, she lifted her foot and stepped on the lower ledge of the door and pressed her sandal firmly down on it as though to kick it open. At that moment I leaned forward and said, Do you know which platform it is for Colchester, I’ve never been down this route!

No, she said "Me neither, I usually go via London—apparently there’s works on the line today!"

Oh, right, I said, Can I follow you then, in case I get lost.

Sure! she said.

"Yes—Yes!" I thought, what ever else, this is a start, now just find out if she’s got someone.

The train stopped the doors opened and she stepped down and waited for me. We both looked like hikers, except that she was wearing high heeled sandals and drain pipe jeans. We made our way from the far platform to the bridge that goes over the main line at the station.

We looked for a time table and on the electronic notice board saw that the next train to Colchester was in 15 minutes.

I’m going outside for a cigarette! she said. Coming?

Oh yes I was coming outside with her to have a cigarette alright. We got outside, sparked up and then began to talk.

I’m Alan, by the way! I said, "Alan Grendigh, I’m in the Army, I’m a Staff Sergeant."

Susie! she said holding out her hand, I’m a civi! So that was one theory shot down in flames. She wasn’t a squaddie after all. So why was she going to Colchester?

I told her a bit more about myself. Born in Tyneside but now live in S. Yorks, been a soldier for 18 years now, single . . .

"Yeah, I was married, divorced soon, just waiting for the paperwork to come through—got a little boy by him, called Charlie." She said. If that would be a problem to anyone else, in this day and age not withstanding, it certainly wasn’t to me. The fact that she looked that good after a kid was a perfect testament to her natural character.

She finished her cigarette, stood on it and ground it to dust under her sandal, and firmly raked it away from the sole that had crushed it. She put her hands back in her pockets and looked at me with a big broad smile, to match my own.

We went back inside the station and waited on the platform. What should I do, ask her for a date, ask her where she lives? But before I could she’d explained.

I’m living at a shelter for mums and kids. It’s a confidential location. My Ex used to be violent to myself and our son! So she’d not be happy about giving her address to me. As we stood there I have to admit I was frozen and wearing enough layers to blunt the cold of Alaska. Susie on the other hand had a thin top and a thin ski jacket on and looked fine. She stamped her heels on the concrete platform occasionally but never shivered—a true Northern Girl!

The train came into sight and soon it had pulled in, and we were getting on board. We sat down together and just passed Manningtree I asked her.

Can I give you my phone number, I asked her Its just you are gorgeous and I rather fancy you—if you don’t mind me saying so! She looked a bit surprised and somewhat concerned, but then began to smile and nod her head.

Yeah, no problems, she said, I’ll give you mine so that we can get in touch. Oh boy, I was in Heaven. We exchanged numbers, me double checking that it had been saved and her confidently tapping in my digits and then sending me a text.

Susie XXXX

I was completely sold. Just to have her do this was enough for me to adore her. The train was approaching Colchester station. We looked at each other. We had big smiles for us and I just felt ecstatic. Finally, after years of loneliness I had met the girl of my dreams. Even if she already had a kid, so what—was that a problem to me?

No—so what else mattered if other people disapproved!

Colchester Town, with all its Christmas lights loomed big and colourful and festively. We came to a stop on Platform 3, and made our way down the far steps, across and then up the near steps to the main entrance and out.

Susie was getting a taxi back to the refuge she and Charlie were staying at. There were plenty there, and she began to walk towards them. I knew I’d have to say goodbye to her here. Then just as she should have jumped into the closest one to her, she stopped, turned her head and looked at me.

"So we’ll see each other again—perhaps after Christmas, yeah?" She asked me. I couldn’t believe it—she actually wanted to go out with me.

Yes, I replied, "Definitely, come out for a drink and a bit of a laugh, why not?", and then I reckon you could do with it!

At that she put her hands on my shoulders and kissed me on my lips.

See you soon! she said and turning climbed into the taxi, and was gone.

I began to lift my hand to wave but then realised that she wouldn’t see me, the taxi was speeding away and she didn’t look back.

Susie, as I would learn later, was the sort of girl who’d learned never to look back!

Part 2

It was after Christmas when we met up again, but not before the end of the Christmas break. She said she’d see me outside McLeod’s, and that she’d bring her son Charlie as well.

I waited and waited and I began to think she might not show. After all, we’d only met once and telling someone that you fancy then and expect that total stranger to turn up, out of the blue a few days later—I didn’t reckon my chances.

I looked at my watch again, and it was now more than 45 minutes passed the time when we’d said we’d meet. I looked around again, and again there were just people going about their busy, sales hunting lives.

Then all of a sudden, there she was, with the little boy, a bright little lad, full of life. She asked if it was ok to go to the fast food joint next to where we stood and I of course, said Yeah! It was her treat that I and Charlie were eating.

While we ate, she told me that there was a play park right next to the castle, and that it would be nice for us to go there and have a talk, and let Charlie have a good play.

We walked down the road and through the gates, the three of us, for all the rest of the people around us, a happy family. She asked me if I’d had a good Christmas, and I’d told her that I’d spent it with an old officer and his extended family.

Charlie ran into the play area and made for the spiral slide, his favourite item.

I and Susie walked over to the bench on the road which leads down to the main park, and once we sat down, got talking. She sparked up and told me a bit more about herself. She even mentioned that for a while she’d been in the Sea Cadets and had served on a warship for a couple of weeks, in her mid-teens.

The little lad was having a wail of a time, laughing and playing with kids who he probably didn’t actually know, and Susie began to tell about life with her ex.

I don’t think she wanted to, but I did. I wanted her to tell me about him.

I found it strange because the little boy showed no signs of the inwardness, awkwardness and shyness often associated with abusive or threatening parents.

I wondered what kind of a violent character her ex husband was.

She was very coy about me knowing about him. It was almost as though she wanted to protect me from him, not the other way round. She was being evasive for my good, not her own or the little boys’.

But we had a great time. I felt ecstatic as it seemed Susie and Charlie did, and as I said goodbye to them in Boots having agreed to this being a good place to leave and go back to our respective homes for the day, me back to the barracks and she and Charlie to the refuge they were living at, I reckoned that this was the start of a new life for all three of us.

At last I’d found someone, at last I’d met a girl who I fancied and she me. And as for the little boy? Well so what! Did I care any more what people said or thought? Had I even been bothered for a while now—No!

Yes, I was happy—happier than I’d been in a very long time. I didn’t think anything could get in the way now that might stop this new life I’d taken on. I just thought that it was the point of a new life for me. Not one which we’d, or at least I’d expected. I’d thought by the time I’d reached my mid thirties, I had ended up on the shelf—and I had.

And of cause that was, as is usually the case with me, a total illusion. In fact it was the start, not of a peaceful and tranquil life for me but a deeply traumatic one.

To tell you the story of what happened after this, I have to tell my own which won’t leave you breathless. There aren’t any shocking parts to mine. Then I’ll tell you the tale about Susie, because that is shocking.

Raw, gritty, violent and truly shocking!

It involved a number of things from sex and drugs to killings, including cold blooded murder.

What I had to do with meeting her was a total act of chance. It was an opportunity in a million, but above all I’ll try to tell you what had led her to be on a train bound for Colchester, which I found a dark and grim story—hundreds of miles from where she’d been born and had grown up—on Jarrow.

Part 3

It was cool that morning, in late May 2008. But not cool enough thought I, as I lined up the metallic cross—hairs of the MRX21i Laser Target Acquisition device, onto the brown mud walled building to the far right of the town in upper Helmand Province where we’d been now for 2 months.

This was the culmination of a months work. Watching, patrolling, targeting and sometimes even fighting the Taliban.

If any one back in Blighty had told me this would be the force that I be working with I’d have laughed at them.

But Yankee Coy, SFSG was a composite unit with a difference. In one month, after a period of two training, this mob put together in Wales and made up of old sweats from the Paras, Scots Guards, Fusiliers and Lancs had travelled in helicopters, trucks and on foot with hideous amounts of kit and ammo, and had fought through the toughest of ground hither to un-conquered by the multi-national force deployed in the rest of the country.

The tragic deaths of young soldiers in the months leading up to the decision to put it together, some still in their teens had shocked the British Public so much that there had been a demand in Parliament to deal with the matter.

And this was it.

As I lay there next to Andy Simonds, a LSgt in 1 Scots Guards, I wondered where he’d started his career. I wondered what paths had taken him from the Eastern Atlantic coast of Glasgow, to be serving many thousands of miles away in Afghanistan.

Above us, I suddenly became aware of a noise. Again, along way but never the less the noise which I’d most commonly become to know-the sound of a jet aircraft. There was only one flying around here today and it was ours.

And fastened by hydraulic jacks on its starboard wing was a J-Dam laser guided missile.

The OC, Major Jock Newtown, a PARA, former tom in the Fusiliers and now leader of this mob held the radio handset to the right side of his face and having made contact with the pilot of the F1 11 Fighter had established that he was our call sign’s aircraft.

Nudging me he told the guy up above in the plane to get ready for the signal, but I already had the cross sight on it and at that moment the guy told OC he had it.

No problems, matey! I thought way ahead of you and Oscar Charlie.

Then the plane’s pitch changed and I knew he’d let bombs go. And indeed OC said quietly to me and the guy next to us, 30 seconds to impact!

Now that I think about it, those 30 seconds was one of the longest in my life. As soon as that bad boy hit, two platoons worth of our guys were going to be running down there to start a minor war!

As always when this is about to happen I go all cold, knowing that lives are going to be lost and even though they are the enemy and would kill me and all the rest of us if they got the chance, it still makes me wonder if I should be doing this and . . .

10 seconds to impact! the OC just said, "5, 4, 3 . . ." but before he could say it, screaming in at over 175 miles per hour